Onondaga Nation files human rights petition over land claims

With its domestic options exhausted, the Onondaga Indian Nation has taken its land claim case to an international commission.

It’s been six months since the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Onondaga’s claim to 2.6 million acres of land in central New York. In the lawsuit first filed in 2005, the nation says land was illegally taken from it in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The courts ruled the Onondaga and other upstate New York-based tribes waited too long to file the suits and any action now would be too disruptive.

"The nation is hopeful that with that kind of a ruling, that we can move closer to getting everybody into a discussion to find some healing, or some justice, for these ancient harms," said the nation's attorney, Joe Heath.

Any kind of decision or recommendation from the commission could take several months, or even years, said Heath, but the nation is willing to wait. He said they’ve already waited more than two centuries.

"Ultimately, a resolution of this ancient problem will have to involve Congress and probably the state of New York," Heath said. "So there are political avenues that might be open if we could get the state to talk to us about this."

While the state-level negotiations on the casinos were taking place, another separate process was marking a much longer history of native and non-native relationships—The Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. On this week’s edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper Oren Lyons and the Renewal Campaign’s Project Coordinator Andy Mager, about the campaign’s aims, and the importance of recognizing and honoring the past in order to improve the future.